By Alex Scroxton
23 June 2008
The consolidation battle in the
British telecoms sector has ramped up as reports emerged of a rescue bid by
UK-based business ISP Colt Telecom and US-based Global Crossing for
Thus.
Three weeks ago, Cable and Wireless
made an unsolicited approach for the assets of Thus totalling around
£300m.
Had the deal gone through, it would
have potentially established Cable and Wireless as the number two player in the
UK enterprise space and would also have added a substantial Scottish business to
Cable and Wireless’ portfolio.
Meanwhile, mobile operator Vodafone
is now understood to have walked away from Anglo-Italian broadband firm Tiscali,
which it was linked to earlier in the month.
Tiscali remained up for sale and
said it was planning to make a firm decision on its future by the beginning of
next
month.
Matthew Townend, managing director
at Illume Consulting said an acquisition would be good news, offering compelling
evidence of Tiscali’s recovery from its past troubles.
“It went through some tough times,
but has fought back and has some strong propositions,” he
said.
Peter Gradwell, CEO at business
internet specialist and Tiscali partner Gradwell.com,also thought a larger owner would bring
benefits.
“Tiscali only has about 900
exchanges unbundled; others have more,” he said. “There are lots of places where
we’ve found we can’t deliver our services because Tiscali doesn’t offer the
infrastructure. If they get bought by a bigger player we hope that would
improve.”
But one source who declined to be
named said interest from a party of Vodafone’s scale could damage the
channel.
“My concern for Tiscali is that they
are doing some really interesting things on the wholesale, channel side,” he
said, questioning what would become of Tiscali’s channel-facing
business.
